by Doyle Rice and Gregg Zoroya USA TODAY, USA TODAY

by Doyle Rice and Gregg Zoroya USA TODAY, USA TODAY

Mother Nature continued her disregard for the calendar on Monday, providing a spring storm that blasted the Midwest and East with heavy, wet snow that snarled highways and airports.

The storm dropped 2 to 6 inches in Ohio overnight and into Monday, and sunrise brought 3 inches of snow in areas around Washington, D.C. Light rain and snow were falling in New Jersey.

Heather Sheffield, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Sterling, Va., said more than 3 inches of snow had been reported by 8 a.m. Monday at Washington Dulles International Airport in Northern Virginia.

As of 11 a.m. 1.4 inches of snow had been reported in Washington's Reagan National Airport, the Weather Channel said. National Airport is the official reporting site for Washington, D.C., which had only seen 1.7 inches of snow so far this winter, prior to this storm.

The Weather Channel named the storm Winter Storm Virgil, as part of its new winter storm naming scheme. No other private forecasters, nor the weather service, are using this name.

Two deaths were blamed on the storm so far, in separate vehicle crashes in Kansas and Missouri on snow-slicked roads.

Airlines have canceled more than 540 flights so far today â?? and more than 1,440 since Sunday â?? thanks to the late-season winter storm that's swept from the Rockies to the East Coast.

Today's worst flight problems are in the East, where 375 flights had been canceled as of 10:45 a.m. ET at the three New York City-area airports of LaGuardia, JFK and Newark Liberty. Nearly one hundred more have been cumulatively canceled at three other busy mid-Atlantic airports: Philadelphia, Washington Dulles and Washington Reagan National.

A late-morning forecast from the weather service reported that moderate to heavy snow will continue into the early afternoon for the DelMarVa Peninsula, New Jersey, and the New York City metro area. Accumulations of from 1-3 inches are likely in these areas. Lighter snow showers are expected from eastern Pennsylvania westward into the central Appalachians and Ohio Valley.

The storm should wind down later Monday from west to east, and be out to sea and gone by Tuesday. As of early afternoon, all winter storm warnings had been discontinued, except for a few spots in the high elevations of the Appalachians and in southern New Jersey.

New England is expected to be largely spared the snow after enduring a difficult winter. However, coastal areas of Delaware, New Jersey, Long Island, and southeastern Massachusetts are at risk for coastal flooding, AccuWeather forecasts.

The slushy morning commute and widespread school delays as the storm moved into the mid-Atlantic were minor compared to the storm's impact on the Midwest, where it was blamed for traffic accidents in Illinois, Kansas and Missouri on snow-slicked roads.

Springfield, in central Illinois, got slammed with a record 17 inches of snow on Sunday, which was the snowiest calendar day on record the city, beating a record from 1900, the Weather Channel reported.

Several central Indiana counties declared snow emergencies after getting hit with up to 8 inches of snow.

Some other big snow totals from the storm so far included 19.4 inches in Beulah, Colo.; 17.7 inches in Taylorville, Ill.; 15 inches in Goodland, Kan.; and 15.1 inches in Harvester, Mo.

Sunday, St. Louis picked up 12.4 inches of snow, according to AccuWeather. This made it the snowiest March day on record, breaking the record of 12.1 set back on March 24, 1912.

Spring snowstorms in the Midwest are not unprecedented through even April, though many weather officials see this storm as possibly the last major gasp of winter.

Weather Bug reports that as of Monday, 48.7% of the contiguous USA was covered by snow, a huge change from last year on this date, when just 7.7% of the country was snow-covered.

College basketball fans in Kansas City were able to breathe a sigh of relief, as the snow didn't affect the NCAA men's tournament schedule.

"The snow is not an issue," said Wynn Butler, 62, of Manhattan, Kan., who was in town with his daughter, a University of Kansas graduate, to watch her alma mater take on North Carolina.

Severe thunderstorms also rattled Florida on Sunday, where there were dozens of reports of high wind and large hail. No severe weather is expected Monday, according to the National Weather Service.